Siphon

Siphon was an Indianapolis area band associated with Homeskillet Records. The band was formed in 1994 by a group of friends who attended Lutheran High School in Indianapolis. The band played together until breaking up in 1997.

Founding
Siphon was formed in early 1994 by its original members: Andy Cook, Eric Dedert, Chris Elmore, Jeff Lucas, and Matt Wittlief. All of the founding members attended Lutheran High School in Indianapolis except Lucas who attended Franklin Central High School. Lucas went to grade school with Dedert and Elmore. The five friends frequently hung out together for a few years prior to forming the band and had a passion for music. All of them were big fans of the Seattle grunge group Nirvana and had talked for a long time about forming a band.

By early 1994, Elmore, Lucas, and Wittlief had begun learning how to play guitar, which would allow the band to become a reality. One night at Elmore's house, Lucas and Wittlief co-wrote the music to the band's first song: Cardboard Box. Dedert assumed vocal duties using the lyrics from poems by Cook and Elmore. The song was recorded into a boom box in Elmore's bedroom. Later, the band created instruments out of cardboard and recorded a music video to the song in Elmore's family room with the song playing over the stero and the band pretending to play.

This event was arguably the founding of the band. The name "Siphon" was chosen after several words were randomly picked from the dictionary.

Pre-Homeskillet History
Lucas registered the band to play at Franklin Central High School's Battle of the Bands. The band needed to find a drummer to go along with the lineup of Cook, Elmore and Wittlief on guitars; Lucas on bass; and Dedert on vocals. Fellow Lutheran High classmate Denis Grigorenko, an exchange student from the Ukraine, agreed to play drums for the show. Elmore puked on stage.

The band later decided to permanently give drumming duty to Wittlief's younger brother, Phil Wittlief. The band booked its first show for July 10, 1994, at the T.A. Skate Shop. Future Homeskillet Records band Liquid Diet was also on the bill. The band played ten original songs for their debut performance. They booked several shows through the summer and fall of 1994, most of which were at the Emerson Theater.

First LSD Show and Departure of Lucas
The band played together with The Lids and Drywall (formerly Liquid Diet) for the first time on the same bill on January 14, 1995. This was the first of many "LSD Shows" where all three bands played at the same show. The frequency of shows, and LSD Shows, increased in the winter of 1995, but the band soon had to make a decision.

At one show at the Emerson, Lucas walked off stage in the middle of a song leaving the band without a bassist. Lead singer and bassist of The Lids, Adam Brenner, jumped on stage and played bass for the rest of the show, learning many of the songs on the fly. The band decided to make Brenner their bassist from that point on, although he was often referred to as "temporarily permanent" or "permanently temporary" in that role.

Discography
Siphon recorded five times.

The first recording was done in the basement of Jeff Lucas. The album was recorded on a four-track.

In the summer of 1994, there was a two track reel-to-reel recording called No Apparent Reason, which was recorded by Lindsay's dad in her basement. Nembrium also recorded that day.

They recorded their second album, called Can I Finish?, which consisted of fifteen tracks, in the summer of 1995.

Adam Brenner did a four-track recording of 4 songs in the Wittlief's basement with the songs were later re-recorded for Jolly Jack Splendid

Finally, they recorded an EP entitled Jolly Jack Splendid, which appeared on the compilation album Homeskillet Music Presents in the summer of 1996. It had seven tracks.